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Stars 'don't deserve' to sit bottom of the table: Zampa

The Melbourne Stars will welcome back up to 10 players for tomorrow night's crucial clash against the Adelaide Strikers, but there’s lingering frustration over last week’s derby going ahead as scheduled

Stand-in Melbourne Stars captain Adam Zampa says it doesn't sit right that his team is now on the bottom of the KFC BBL|11 table as they prepare to welcome back as many as 10 players following a COVID-19 outbreak.

The Australian white-ball spinner said while it would be a silver lining that they appear to be in the clear for the rest of the tournament, the squad was still flat about what had happened over the past week.

The Stars were forced to scramble together a team made up of club cricketers and fringe state players for the Melbourne derby against the Renegades and their clash against the Perth Scorchers after 10 players and a number of staff tested positive to the virus.

Since then, regular captain Glenn Maxwell, English import Joe Clarke and promising replacement player Tom Rogers have also gone down with COVID-19, taking the total number of players to 13.

Zampa also said star quick Nathan Coulter-Nile was still hampered by a hamstring injury he suffered before contracting COVID and would miss alongside Maxwell, but they would be close to full strength for tomorrow's clash against the Adelaide Strikers at the MCG if Clarke gets the all clear from club doctors to suit up.

"I'm glad that I've kind of had it and gotten it out of the way,” Zampa, who is double-vaccinated, said on Sunday.

"But my team is now sitting in last place and we're staring down the barrel of missing the semis again so it's getting desperate times in terms of performance and getting to the back-end of the tournament.

"The silver lining is 'yeah, I've had it and hopefully I'm passed fit, and I can get through the next six games OK' but we're sitting last on the table, which I really don't think is where we deserve to be sitting."

Renegades late surge too strong for young Stars

The 29-year-old said the Stars squad was "really flat at the moment" as players and staff were all at different stages in their recovery from the virus.

"Some guys are hitting a lot of balls already and are really excited about tomorrow night and some guys are finding it really tough to get going," he said.

"A lot of guys had pretty bad symptoms, a lot of guys had none, I was probably one of those guys who was a little bit in-between with symptoms for a couple of days.

"I guess when you add on top of isolation for week actually being sick as well, it does make it really difficult to try and get the body going and get the mind switched back onto cricket.

"We're trying to get back into the swing of things and get our minds thinking about cricket now.

"We're not going to force guys to play if they're not ready, some guys were really asymptomatic and probably feel like the last couple of days of training they got a lot out of it.

"We made a really conscious effort to try and touch base with everyone as much as possible.

"I've taken it really easy the last couple of days and had a good bowl yesterday and will have a bowl again today and have actually recovered really well, my body is feeling pretty good, obviously not 100 per cent still but I'm getting my head around playing tomorrow."

Perth juggernaut rolls over depleted Stars outfit

Despite two of their games - against the Scorchers on December 30 and Adelaide Strikers on January 7 - being postponed, Zampa said he felt somewhat annoyed the Melbourne derby was allowed to proceed on January 3.

"You would think that you would want two full-strength squads available for a game ... Renegades-Stars, Scorchers-Sixers and Sixers-Thunder, these competitions are built on days like that," he said.

"I think the derby day was taken the piss out of a little bit and that was because it was set in stone on January 3.

"It is obviously a great opportunity for some of those guys that came in and played."

Is the Melbourne Stars curse real?

The leg-spinner thinks it's also obvious what is going to happen if a team is hit by a COVID outbreak during the finals series, which is just 12 days away.

"Find as many players as you can, field a team and get the game on TV," Zampa said.

"The answer is out there – it happened to the Stars, it happened to the Heat, it's probably going to happen to more teams as well.

"Finishing the competition is really important … getting the 14-game season in was really important to them obviously as well so we're continuing to do that.

"The (Melbourne) hub is probably the only option … unfortunately, it's ended up this way.

"Obviously there's international cricket coming up, which is really hard to change in the schedule."

Barring injury, Zampa is likely to line-up in those international white-ball fixtures against New Zealand and Sri Lanka that begin just two days after the BBL|11 final on January 30, meaning extending the BBL season beyond the current timeframe would create further scheduling complications – and that’s without also factoring in the remaining matches for the Marsh One-Day Cup and Sheffield Shield seasons.

The Stars are still in the race to make the finals even after losing their past two games during their virus outbreak and sit five points behind the Heat in fifth position with the most games still to play.

Sustainability and creativity: A tour of Zampa's property

Zampa said he had previously skippered underage cricket, a couple of seasons of Sydney first grade before moving to South Australia in 2013 and had been captain of his own "bowling for the last decade".

"I try to think about the game as if I'm a captain anyway while I'm out there and it's a great way to learn about it," he said.

"I've got good support here as well, obviously Huss (coach David Hussey) has been the Stars captain for a long time, Stoin (Marcus Stoinis) has got a good cricket brain, I've got Hilton Cartwright and Nick Larkin who are really experienced and know the team, so we'll be absolutely fine in terms of leadership.

"I'm really pumped for this game against the Adelaide Strikers, they're a lot of my old friends that I used to play with."